“I obey unquestioningly, but I confess to strong doubts as to whether we mean the same thing by boiled cabbage”—laughing.
“I know we don’t,” said Molly maliciously. “Will you look at this? I am going to pour in a half pint of the broth, which I find you did flavor with vegetables.”
“Yes, I’m not so ungrateful as to neglect your instructions, after the success of our Saturday night’s dinner.” (It should be mentioned that on Sunday Mrs. Lennox had come to tell Molly how good it was, and how much enjoyed.) “There was some left, very little, and a little kidney from yesterday’s breakfast; the children did not take any of that. This morning I warmed both together with a very little of that broth, and they made another good breakfast, and I felt that I had achieved something.”
“That was a splendid idea; so few people think what two or three odds and ends put together will do, though each may be so little as to be almost worthless alone. Real economical management lies in this dovetailing one thing with another. This is what English and Americans know so little, and the French so well.”
“I see that sauce is now like onion sauce, but less white.”
“It is onion sauce, made with broth instead of milk. Now we will lay the meat in and leave it to steep in this sauce at the back of the range, where it will keep at boiling-point but not boil. The last thing, add a tea-spoonful of vinegar or a few capers.”
Now the cabbage.
“Yes, I’m waiting for that miracle,” said Mrs. Lennox, coming with it in the colander, after shaking the water well out. “I shall lay the blame on your shoulders if Mr. Lennox’s olfactories are offended; he will forgive you anything, since through you we have lived better and spent a dollar less in three days. There is nothing truer than that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
“Then we must take that path,” said Molly merrily. “The cabbage needs a table-spoonful of salt added to the water and a scant half tea-spoonful of soda.”
“I shall wait and see the success of the cabbage,” added Molly, laughing, when she had seen it boiling furiously, “although the meat is done, so I may iron another piece or two.”